What She Carried
by Amorissy
Summary: After the dust settles, Elissa Cousland returns to the ruin that haunts her dreams, the place she'd once called home. With her travels an unlikely companion, by whose wise counsel she may yet find a way to free herself of the ghosts of her past - if she can summon the courage to listen.


**Author's Note:** Written for Bain Sidhe (FFN id:333803) for the CMDA Secret Santa exchange in 2015. Lost, and then found, and then posted on a whim.

 **Warning:** This story takes place post-epilogue, so blanket spoiler warning for events of DA:O, especially the human noble origin story.

* * *

 **What She Carried**

* * *

Together, they travelled to Highever.

It was worth mentioning, however, that if Elissa had gotten her way, she would have been alone. She couldn't pretend she did not find Loghain's presence at her side disconcerting. The man was a horrible travelling companion, especially now that it was just the two of them. They had done little but argue since leaving Denerim. Loghain was of a mind that they should not be going to Highever at all, but she had done her best to ignore him. The man was always of a mind of something, after all, and the days since Denerim had been... trying.

 _Trying._ It was her mother's word, and in her mind, it was spoken in her mother's voice, slowly, clearly, always perfectly affected, so as to illustrate in every syllable how great the ordeal actually was.

" _Elissa can be ever so... trying."_

And if Elissa was anything in this world, she was her mother's daughter. She'd held her chin high as Alistair married Anora in a chantry that still smelled faintly of battle and burning thatch; she'd smiled and practised her courtesies through a week's worth of celebration and remembrance; she'd borne the shame of what she'd done, what she'd convinced Loghain to endure on her behalf, with humility and grace (and wine and denial).

And as soon as it was all over, she'd packed a bag and grabbed her bow and her hound and was out of the gates before anyone could think to look for her.

Except that someone had thought to look for her – and what was more, not only did he have the nerve to come after her, he had managed to catch up to her with surprising speed for a man of his years. She'd scarcely gone more than a few miles when she heard his black courser riding up the road, leading her smaller chestnut forder behind them.

She'd raised an eyebrow at him as he'd handed her the reins, but Loghain's only response was a grunt that she was in no mood to decipher.

"We're more vulnerable on foot," was all he said as she'd mounted.

That he'd known in which direction she would go, well, she hadn't considered that clever or lucky or even surprising. Anyone with half a brain would have realized that there was only once place in Ferelden she was going to go.

She was going home.

Not that Loghain was the kind of man who would leave well enough alone. He had tried to dissuade her of such reckless action, repeatedly.

"We are on a fool's errand."

"This from the man who chose to accompany me."

"There was no choice in the matter. Your Circle mage was on the verge of bullying Alistair into sending the whole of the army after you, and the boy was ready to fold like a cheap tent. I stepped in before that could happen, and told them I had everything well in hand."

"How noble of you."

"Nobility had nothing to do with it. Alistair has more pressing issues to deal with than your whims. You are no longer his commanding officer, whereas I am honour-bound to follow you."

Commanding officer. It was a term she was – well, still coming to terms with. She was not used to Loghain's blunt demeanour; it was so unlike Alistair's good-natured deference, and he was always catching her off-guard with his comments, stark and serious and unsettling. Without the chatter and bickering of the rest of their companions in the background, Loghain's gravely practical presence loomed especially large. The echoes of his brutal honesty could be, at times, deafening.

Still, in the days after Denerim, she would have no other. There was a strange comfort to be found in his presence that she'd come to recognize, if not seek out; she'd known men like him all her life, after all. It almost went without saying that she felt at ease with him. Perhaps, she had to admit, she even felt safe.

It was only the fact that it was Loghain with whom she felt safe that gave her reason to pause.

* * *

...

* * *

They were a week on the road to Highever. With just the three of them, and no small army to herd around anymore, they kept a decent pace. And despite Loghain's recurring insistence that they were wasting their time, she could see that he was pleased with their progress.

It was not an unpleasant journey. Autumn was in its full glory here, and the forests and fields were a riot of colour and light. The countryside here had seen less of the horrors of the Blight than in the south, and the north road through the Coastlands was all but deserted. Outside of Denerim, the roads had been thick with people flocking to the capital to get a glimpse of their new king, but as the miles and the days had faded into the horizon at their backs, other travellers became few and far between.

That was not to say their journey was without event. Darkspawn stragglers, roadside bandits, and refugee camps all played a part in delaying them from time to time. It was a stark reminder, there in the middle of nowhere, of what the war had done – and what they had done – to their homeland, and Elissa found that her guilt was inescapable.

But putting one foot in front of the other had a way of taking you places, and all too soon, the countryside began to grow familiar and Elissa began to grow uneasy. It was early afternoon on the sixth day when they reached the edges of her family's land, and even though the sun was still high and there were scarcely a handful of hours separating her from Highever and Castle Cousland, she called for a stop and dismounted before Loghain could voice a complaint. Dog bounded about at her feet, barking with clumsy excitement at the unexpected interruption.

"We should make camp here," she said, trying to sound idle and bored, and probably making a poor show of it. She pointed through the trees. "There is a stream that way. Somewhere, I think."

Loghain had the grace to at least look in the direction she had pointed, and he seemed thoughtful for a time before he turned back to her. "Is this really as far as we're going to get?" he asked amiably. "I had though we'd at least be in sight of the castle before you lost your nerve for this foolishness."

"I haven't lost my nerve."

He levelled her with a look, one of those calculating, measuring looks that made her feel small and wholly inadequate, as if he were trying to weigh out her worth and potential with only his eyes. So she did the only logical thing she could think of: she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and glared right back at him.

Loghain chuckled then, a little warmth coming in to soften the steel in his eyes, and he almost smiled at her. "We shall see, my dear. We shall see."

They said little else as they spent the next few hours settling into a spot away from the road. They built a fire, pitched their tents, and tended to their horses, all while Dog explored the woods around them, chasing away the easy game. It was busy work, and familiar, and Elissa lost herself in it for a time, when she could pretend, at least for a little while, that nothing had changed, that she had lost no one and would lose no one else, that tomorrow would be better. But when there was no more work to do, and the woods around them grew hazy and then dark, she sat alone next to the fire, staring into the flames, and was slowly consumed by her guilt and her grief.

That was where Loghain found her, with Dog snoring at her feet, after he returned from hunting. He'd traded his plate and mail for silence of movement in order to catch their supper, so she did not hear him approach until he dropped a brace of rabbits at her feet.

"Will you skin them, or shall I?"

She said nothing, and returned to staring at the fire.

Loghain was quiet as he prepared his catch. He had the rabbits skinned and spitted in a matter of minutes. When he was done, he wiped his hands on his trousers, sat down in the dirt across the fire from her, and began tending to his weapons. It was all done with the same formal, no-nonsense grace and proficiency with which he did everything else, and soon she found herself watching him on the other side of the flames rather than the blaze itself.

"I do admire your resolve, you know, even as ill-placed as it is," he said absently, as if he'd simply grown tired of waiting for her to start paying him the proper attention. "But what you're seeking cannot be found." As he spoke, he did not take his eyes off his sword as it lay across his lap, and the oilcloth in his hand never ceased in its even strokes.

Her words were hard but her voice was weary as she replied, "You know nothing of what I seek."

"You're still there, aren't you?" he asked with his usual disregard for an unpalatable truth, but he was without any of the smugness she had come to expect from him. She could almost have mistaken his interest for concern. "You've united elves, dwarves, and templars, killed an Archdemon, and put an end to the civil war in the span of a year, but a part of you is still there. It never left."

Elissa bit her tongue and looked away.

"A strange thing, isn't it?" he mused, still running the oilcloth down the length of his gleaming blade with effortless precision. "What we carry with us and what we leave behind. I've been where you are, Warden. I don't care to recount the details here, but suffice to say that I have lost to violence as you have. To senselessness and greed."

"And your counsel?"

"Take it with you. Staying behind is as much of a death sentence as this Calling of yours. But in the end, it will hurt infinitely more."

"Is that what you did, Loghain? You took it with you, and moved on?" She was skeptical, oh by the Maker, was she skeptical, but his face was unreadable in the firelight, and his voice was as steady as the edge of his steel.

"It took time, but I wasn't as distracted as you've been. But I did, and so will you, if you know what's good for you."

With that, he slid his sword back into its scabbard, and climbed to his feet. He didn't bid her goodnight, only went to his tent, and she was left staring after him, his words echoing noisily inside her hollow heart.

* * *

...

* * *

It was mid-morning when they crested the last hill and the village of Highever came into view, spread out below them, the fields of ripe wheat like a sea of gold, the roofs of thatch and slate peeking out through the trees with their chimneys quietly smoking, all of it as pretty as a picture. In the distance, Castle Cousland rose up out of the pines like a benevolent protector.

The sight was a knife to Elissa's gut, and she hunched a little in her saddle with the pain of it.

Loghain rode up behind her, and when she looked at him, there was a smile on his face.

"Now there's a sight for sore eyes," he said amicably, and even when Elissa levelled him with a disbelieving glare, his smile did not falter. "A bit of Ferelden, untouched by the Blight and the war. Even you must admit to the beauty of that."

She had no response; words gummed up in her throat like she'd swallowed pine sap. His sense and logic infuriated her, and his emotional detachment only made it worse. Untouched by the Blight as it might be, the war had come to Highever long before anywhere else. She turned away, knowing he did not expect her to agree with him, and she rode down the hill toward the village, Dog loping along at her side.

It was difficult not to remember the last time she'd travelled this road. The darkness. The glow of the fires cast against the clouds. The Grey Warden's steady hand as he'd led her through the woods on the outskirts of the village. She'd been blind with shock and grief, but Duncan had shown her the way.

A year had passed since then, and Duncan was gone. She'd had to learn to find the way on her own, and no matter the route she'd taken, how far she'd travelled, or the sacrifices she'd made along the way, somehow, her feet had led her home with Loghain at her side. The taint in their blood had washed clean all their other sins: he was no longer a general and she was no longer daughter of a Teyrn. Everything else didn't matter.

Still, she was a stranger to these people now, and she was treated as such as she rode through the fields with Loghain. The men working glanced up curiously, but soon enough turned their attention back to their harvest; in the village, it was much of the same. They had seen their fair share of strangers come up and down these roads in the months previous; another two wandering souls on a sunny afternoon were nothing to them.

She heard the talk as she rode through the village, and it made her smile. The Archdemon, dead. The Grey Wardens, victorious. Calenhad's blood, found. Their lord Fergus, alive. Their new lady, possibly Chasind. Highever's future, hazy – but hopeful.

But as they entered the woods on the other side of the village, where the road twisted through the thick trees toward the castle and Dog ran ahead, barking madly, she pulled at the reins until her mount came to a stop, and she turned around in the saddle. Once Loghain realized she wasn't following him, he came back with a sigh of exasperation.

"Stop looking so forlorn, it's hardly the last time you'll see the place," he groused. "We've got to come back this way, after all."

"I just thought–"

"You were expecting a warm welcome? A celebration?"

"No one knew who I was. No one cared."

"Of course they didn't. You are not the same young woman you were before the Blight. Even when we met briefly at Ostagar, I hardly recognized the Cousland in you. Why should they, when so much has changed since then?"

She opened her mouth to argue, but closed it again as the truth of his words sank in. A year of hard living, a year of growing from a sheltered child into a woman and a Warden, had changed almost everything about her. Loghain was right; when she'd chanced to encounter a looking glass in the king's palace in Denerim, she'd hardly known the face looking back at her to be her own. Even Fergus had commented on it during the few minutes they'd stolen during the coronation, tucked away from prying eyes, hiding from the bitter joy of such a hollow victory. How could she have expected anything more from anyone else, when her own brother had scarcely known her?

"You're right," she conceded to Loghain. "Blight take you."

"I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but the Blight has already failed to take me," he said, a hint of a smile taking root at the corner of his mouth, "but I'll assure you, it wasn't for a lack of trying."

The castle appeared through the gaps in the trees as they rode closer. One moment, the canopy was thick above their heads, painted in flecks of russet and gold, and the next, the trees thinned, the sky opened up, and the castle loomed up like a shadow against the afternoon glare. Her eyes drank in the sight until she was almost blind from the sunlight, and she knew that for the rest of her days, she would never forget this moment.

They dismounted, and tied up their horses. Dog came back to her, panting happily. She knelt down, rubbing the loose skin behind his ears.

"Stay here, love. I won't be long."

The drawbridge was down, and their footsteps echoed hollowly along the deep stream-bed that wound its lazy way around the castle. The gate was open – or so she had thought when she had ridden up. Now she saw that the gate was broken into pieces, the great oak doors laying in the mud and reeds. Bits of splintered wood and discarded iron were everywhere.

Elissa and Loghain picked their way through the wreckage of the ruined entrance hall. Every way she turned, she saw evidence of the battle that had destroyed everything she had ever known. Here, a wooden pillar riddled with arrows; there, the stones were stained with blood; everywhere, ash and scorch marks and haunting memories.

She knew of her brother's plans for restoration. She did not envy him of it, the arduous task of repairing the damage Howe had done to the walls, never being able to repair the damage Howe had done to his heart when he'd put his wife and son to the sword. In the end, Elissa had gotten her revenge, some semblance of closure amidst all the blood and smoke that had followed in the wake of Howe's treachery. Fergus would never have that chance, and no matter the life he tried to rebuild within these walls, he would never escape the ghosts of the life he'd lost when he left them behind to die.

The bright, beautiful afternoon was a deceptive thing as they made their way through the ruins of her ancestral home, the sunlight coming down in thick shafts alive with dancing dust. Loghain followed in utter silence, and she was glad for the blessing. She'd meant this to be a solitary journey, and he was an intruder upon her solitude, no matter his surprisingly good intentions.

The rattle of his plate echoed off the stones with every step as he followed her.

Through the chapel, where the altar was overturned and scorched black; through the library, where Howe's men had burned the books out of spite; through the atrium, where the ivy had grown unchecked and inches of dust and ash lay upon the benches. She had expected looting but everything was mostly untouched; Howe's legacy, his promise to return. The curse of treachery upon the place had done the rest to keep would-be burglars away.

It was only when they reached the family rooms that her courage began to falter. She could not bring herself to enter any of the bedrooms; she remained in the antechamber, sunlight spilling in through the doorway, the hearths cold and empty. The once rich carpet was spongy beneath her feet, and each step she took brought on the stench of damp and mold. Here, she only found more destruction. The paintings and tapestries had been ripped from the walls, had been stepped on, spat upon, bled upon. The door had been torn from the hinges, and the furniture splintered against the floor. Not a trace was left of the warmth and love that had once dwelt in these rooms.

And it was once they reached the family rooms that Loghain finally broke his silence. "A terrible thing happened here," he said. "But there was nothing that could have been done, Howe's later ambitions have proven that. He was a man of particularly cruel talent."

"You will not speak to me of him," she said. "Not you, and not here."

"As I have already told you, I had no part in this massacre. I do not mind telling you again, however, I do so enjoy repeating myself."

She did not deign to answer. Instead, she turned and left him there, leaving him behind as she made her way along the corridors, vaulting over rubble that had once blazed with flame to bar her way. She did not want to escape him, no more than she wanted to escape the memories that chased her down each hall.

Mother with her gentle corrections; Father with his lessons and guidance; little Oren with his smiles and incessant questions.

She did not stop until she reached the pantry. She knelt down on the floor, where once she'd knelt by her dying father's side, his life's blood spilling over the stones beneath her, turning her boots red. Now, the stain was dark and dry and dusty, the only sign of the tragedy that had happened here. She ran her hand over the edge of it, tracing the line where it had finally stopped running, and the streaks that led toward the kitchen, when they had dragged her father's body away. She lowered her head, and her shoulders slumped, and the first of her sobs was a shudder that ran through her whole body.

This was where Loghain found her, his shadow was filling the doorway and cutting out the light. Dog was behind him, and she realized Loghain had gone outside to fetch him when he could not find her himself, and this was where his patience had run out.

"Oh, come here, you foolish girl," he said, stepping into the pantry. The hand on her arm was gentle as he pulled her to her feet. He did not let go of her as he led her, somewhat forcibly, out of the pantry, across the kitchen, and out into the warm sunlight, and even then, he did not so much let go of her as she wrenched her arm away. She blinked in the brightness, purging the tears. "We must put an end to this. I gather from your emotional display that you are ready to carry this away with you."

"As you did, Loghain? Just turned your back and walked away. Tell me, were you born heartless?"

He smirked at her, and shook his head. "Contrary to popular impression, I was not. My mother was murdered before my eyes. It was that act that changed me more than anything that came after. I ran from it for many years."

"Why did you stop running?"

"I met Maric," he said, shrugging his shoulders as if it were so simple. "He showed me there were things left that were worth fighting for."

His words gave her pause; she did not think she could muster the courage to ask what those things were. The sun was in her eyes, and she tipped her head to one side so that his daunting figure would block out some of the glare. And perhaps it was the madness of her sorrow that seized her, or her loneliness, or the heat of the day, or the ghosts of a life gone. In the end, she would never know. But in that moment she realized they were standing very close to one another, and she could see the sweat of his dark brow, and smell the leather strapping of his armor.

She pressed up on her toes, and kissed him.

It was sudden and it was swift; imperfect and strange. He did not move, and the moment her lips left his, he cleared his throat and turned away, nudging her away from him as he did so. He looked lost for a moment, searching about for some distraction, but if he found one, she would never know. He walked away from her down the high stone corridor, but after only a few steps, he stopped, his face half turned toward her, so that she could see his profile and little else.

"I went back," he said, his voice level and soft. "After the rebellion, I went back to the pile of rubble and burned timbers that had once been my family's farm. I had survived. I did not begin to live until after I'd taken back what I left behind."

He said no more, and left her there to contemplate his tale. Once he was out of sight, she all but collapsed against the stone wall, the reaching ivy a cradle to catch her. She slid to the floor, and let her head fall back so that she might watch the bluest sky she'd ever seen, or would ever see again. Dog laid down beside her, his jowls resting on his front paws, looking up at her with disbelief written clear in his crooked brow.

She was not sure how long she sat there, but when she finally climbed to her feet again, she was ready to leave and never look back. She found Loghain waiting for her at the gate. He seemed calm, but as she approached, he refused to meet her eyes, and she blushed with a wave of embarrassment, and vowed never again to make the mistake she had made in the corridor. The man was right. She was a fool.

"Are you ready to leave?" she asked.

"Warden–"

"There's an inn in the village. Or there was. We could–"

" _Elissa._ "

She stopped at that. She could not remember the last time someone had spoken her given name. There were times when she had wondered if any of her companions had bothered to learn it at all. But when it fell from Loghain's lips in that moment, she paused, and looked up at him to find his blue eyes burning into hers. And she had not another moment to think because he ducked his head to kiss her, pushing her back against the wall, his gauntlets hitting the floor so that his hands might find their way into her hair.

This time, it was not swift. And this time, it was not imperfect.

When he pulled away, they were both flushed with breathlessness. She expected him to be smiling, because she could not keep hers away, but his face was serious, unreadable. Dog paced behind them, growling his disapproval.

"I apologize if I startled you," Loghain said huskily, "but I believe if a thing is to be done, it should be done right." And then he smiled down at her, and she realized, once again, that this man before her had been right, after all.

She had not found what she was looking for. Instead, she had found something more.


End file.
